Jesus.

Washington State Patrol confirms an I-5 bridge over the Skagit River has collapsed and at least two cars with people inside are in the water.

The incident has closed all northbound and southbound lanes.

This piece in The PI’s Big Blog about Seattle being a healthy city is fine. But I’m confused about this from the setup (bold mine):

We may be hard to get to know and a drag to ride the bus with, but when it comes to being healthy, Seattleites rank right up there with Bostonians.

What? Are we more of a drag to ride the bus with than most other places? Is it just the bus or any public transit?* I feel like I don’t even know what the stereotype about Seattle bus passengers is. Is this a reference to another piece that I missed?

Compared to a lot of the places that I’ve lived (larger like London and smaller like Olympia both come to mind), we’re much more conversant, chatty, maybe even flirtatious with strangers. If anything, people are more likely to drag me into a chat that I don’t really want to participate in than I’d like. And when you ride the same route regularly, you get to know some of the other people. I guess if you hate those damn kids, they can be annoying, but no more than anywhere else. For me, other than the occasional person with a mental illness, the other passengers are generally pretty pleasant.

Your mileage may vary, of course. There are horror stories that I’ve heard from women about sexual harassment and worse on the bus. Still, I don’t think it’s more of a drag than anywhere else.

[Read more…]

– The first time I read the Silicon Sound I thought it sounded pretty good. But maybe it’s catching up to somewhere else.

– So, related to the Salon piece, I think articles like it serve as important reminders of how Wikipedia’s form, so to speak, can’t always be separated from its content. (h/t)

– Jesus, London

– Just remember: the state can’t touch our guns (or require tornado shelters) because of freedom…but adults’ private decisions about whom to love must suffer the full brunt of state power.

– I am going to opt for not being in the same car as your dog, sorry.

– I digitally scan bowling ball surfaces and I vote

This is pretty neat:

Mills, a Central District resident, said Books on Bikes is a “full-service library model. I’m not aware of any other library that does this. We will be able to provide people with help on digital downloads, as well as offer reading suggestions, have popular new titles available for check-out, provide Library card sign-ups, assist with research and much more,” he said. The trailer to accommodate all the librarians’ needs was developed and constructed by Colin Stevens, who runs Haulin’ Colin in Seattle.

And just to head off the almost inevitable how-come-there-aren’t-books-on-cars trolling, there are. And that’s pretty cool too, but not a new program.

Later in the week, I’m going to send out candidate questions to everyone running for Seattle mayor. I have my own ideas about what to ask, but I thought I’d throw it out to the comment section before I send anything off.

The general rule is it would have to be broad enough that it could be asked to all of the candidates so no in your first term questions for McGinn or legislature questions for Murray, for example. But there are more general questions about things that happened in McGinn’s first term or in the legislature when Murray was there. I talked to Lee and Darryl at Drinking Liberally and there was some discussion of Metro and I-502, but we weren’t sure if that’s a city question. I’m definitely going to ask a police reform question.

Here are the questions I emailed out to City Council candidates 2 years ago.

Aside from Seattle mayor, I think I’m going to ask the top 2 people in each City Council seat after the primary. Are there any other seats you’d like to see questions asked?

– The most surprising thing about this poll is that 32% of Seattle voters think McGinn did a good job handling the police department. Who?

– Erica C. Barnett has a not good for McGinn take on the poll.

– Vermont is the 4th state with a Death with Dignity law.

– I don’t think it’d be unreasonable to seize Apple’s assets until it came to a reasonable agreement on its tax bill.

– It feels like we’re overpaying our college sportsball coaches.

– Virginia is for haters.

– 5 Ugly Lessons Hiding in Every Superhero Movie

If you want to help out Oklahoma, here are some things:

– The Red Cross

– People on Twitter are saying if you text “REDCROSS” to 90999 it’s a $10 donation.

– If you’re looking for someone in the region, you can see who has registered as safe and well.

– Much of this came from the White House page.

If you have any other resources, feel free to leave them in the comments.

– Christians aren’t being persecuted, as you can see from this map.

– The fare system for Rapid Ride E doesn’t seem very rapid.

– I should be clear about something — the invocation of Walter White or Mordecai Wyatt Johnson or Barack Obama isn’t to say that most (or even many) black people share their particular ancestry. The point is that what you check on your census form in America is a product of social context.

– Who do you really serve? The country, or the liars in your BlackBerries?

– Goldy decides not to challenge Richard Conlin.

– Hannah Hart came to Seattle

N in Seattle already mentioned it, but, this is a surprise.

From his botched announcement last November to this abrupt end, Burgess’s campaign never caught the tailwind many expected. He was considered a leading challenger last year—a sort of mayor in waiting, after Mayor McGinn’s two years of floundering—but McGinn seems to have found sea legs at City Hall, and a pack of heavyweight contenders crowded into the race in January and February. In particular, state senator Ed Murray and to a lesser extent Council Member Bruce Harrell have emerged in the race as safe bets for institutional backers that represent downtown business, and, unlike Burgess, can’t be portrayed as conservative outliers (Burgess infamously sponsored a controversial aggressive panhandling bill that failed in 2010).

Burgess has also been unraveling this week.

After the news that the 36th District—Burgess’s home district—would split its endorsement between him and Murray, yesterday came the news from PubliCola that Burgess fired his spokesman. And then the 46th District Democrats, who represent the relatively wealthy, white district of northeast Seattle that seems like Burgess’s base, didn’t endorse him at all. Also the city council’s biggest advocate to bring back the Sonics, Burgess took a blow when the NBA nixed the deal Wednesday.

At the beginning, I’d thought he’d make it through the primary, so that’s obviously yet another Carl Ballard prediction wrong. It also means I won’t have a chance to do a metacommentary on this old Seattle Times op-ed he wrote before he was elected to City Council. And his dropping out this late means we won’t have to deal with some Republicans.

I love these activists almost as much as I hate Tacoma’s response.

One morning, they were just there: Crosswalks and a short bike lane in a Tacoma business district to help people get across a dangerous street.

Business owners loved it.

But the city recently spent $1,000 to grind away the illegal crosswalk paint, leaving one business owner to ask King 5, “How much is paint versus having this grinding machine…?”

I mean if the community liked it, you should consider leaving it. I assume there are legal concerns about treating something that isn’t a crosswalk according to the law like it’s a crosswalk. Still, it seems like they could just change the fake crosswalk into a real crosswalk with some legislation.

In an interview with Publicola, even with Josh Feit softballing it, Rodney Tom decides to act like an asshole. When asked why he’s endorsing someone who would undo the progress made on civil rights for gay people, he decides to attack Seattle.

I think that there is a lot of talk of that. The politics over there get a little weird. If we’re measuring any of their politicians from a Seattle basis, they think Seattle’s crazy, and Seattle’s probably going to think they’re crazy. But overall, she’s an intelligent legislator that I think can serve her community well. I think she’s an intelligent lady that can work her way through some very complicated issues that we need more of in Olympia.

I’ll defend Seattle any day of the week and twice on Sunday, but that’s pretty fucked up. Oh those awful Seattle folks with thinking gay people deserve not to be discriminated against and that workers deserve basic rights. Crazy.

Also, it doesn’t really paint a picture that Rodney Tom respects Eastern Washington either. “Vote for Sharon Brown, you crazies” is maybe not as great a slogan as he thinks it is.

Anyway, later Josh asks him why he didn’t support the DREAM Act on the floor of the Senate if he supports it in theory (the aside is Josh’s):

Sen. Tom: I don’t know. If 25 and 50 are the magic thing to get anything past out of both the house and the senate, that’s a very different element in the way this place has been run. There’s a ton of votes over in the house that I can get 50 votes for that never see the light of day. If that’s going to be the measuring stick, let’s use it for both the house and the senate. [PubliCola, has, in fact, pointed out this Democratic double standard before.]

PubliCola: Can you give an example?

Sen. Tom: A lot of the workers’ comp type issues. A lot of labor issues. Pension issues. There’s a lot of business-centric Democrats like myself over in the house that would be voting for these things that don’t stick in labor states—you know, they don’t love it—but our business communities and small businesses in particular need some of these reforms.

If you wanted to have a say in how the House does business, you probably shouldn’t have left that body. Also, the difference is that the Speaker HASN’T SAID HE SUPPORTS GUTTING WORKERS COMP. The House Speaker killing a bill he doesn’t like is not analogous to the Senate Majority Leader killing a bill he says he is for.

See, that’s why the analogy doesn’t work. If Chopp was trying to convince people he really wanted to gut worker’s comp, then that would make sense to make that comparison. But the leader isn’t going to have a vote on gutting workers comp because he doesn’t want it to pass. In fact, the only way the analogy works is if Rodney Toms critics are right and he doesn’t want the DREAM act to pass. So, we’re all on the same page then.

– Upon order of the King County Sheriff, Jeremy Griffin was supposed to be out of his home by Tuesday at midnight. Instead, starting late last night, he has played host to members of Standing Against Foreclosure & Eviction, a group that grew out of the Occupy movement.

– In fact, the only known 501(c)(4) applicant to have its status denied happens to be a progressive group: the Maine chapter of Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office. Although the group did no electoral work, and didn’t participate in independent expenditure campaign activity either, its partisan status apparently disqualified it from being categorized as working for the “common good.”

– The mechanics of getting death penalty drugs to states that use them is both fascinating and disgusting (h/t).

– That’s right: “Save the Boobs.” Not the human beings those boobs are attached to—women who, like Jolie, could benefit from potentially life-saving mastectomies—but the boobs that give those women value. Boobies: Save ’em! Ladies: not so much.

– I would hope Pam Roach’s plan to make it easier to recall elected officials would include abusing staff.

– Thurston County dams.

I’m writing to urge you to adopt rules federally banning states, cities, and other municipalities from paying for sports arenas for professional teams. Or better, prohibit teams in leagues with over some amount of assets to play in municipally built stadiums. Model it after Seattle’s initiative, so municipalities have to be able to make money off the deal or no deal.

With the NBA telling the Kings they can’t relocate, part of the underlying reasoning they’re staying in a smaller media market with a worse offer is that town is willing to shill out an obscene amount of money to build an arena. The amount that cities are willing to bilk their taxpayers is a large part of the reason the Kings aren’t coming to Seattle. So, while it would probably be too late to get the Sonics back this time, this would better lay the groundwork for future.

It would also be fundamentally more decent. After all, these sort of deals are out of control, and most cities with sports teams are on the bad end of these types of deals, having to take much of the risk with any financial gain going to the teams. The teams rely on taxpayers to make themselves a profit.

It’s the sort of problem that, really, can only be solved at the national level. After all, as long as different cities in different states are competing for these things, the threat of leaving is going to be too great. These leagues that span the country are the sort of interstate commerce that Congress should be regulating. I don’t know if it could get through the dysfunctional Congress, but it’s worth a try.

And would this be punishment for the NBA for leaving in the way that it did, and then voting not to let us get another team? And to a lesser extent to MLB and the NFL for foisting bad stadium deals on is in the first place? Sure. But it’s still a better idea than having municipalities fight over teams with taxpayer stadiums.

Hugs and kisses

Carl Ballard
horsesass.org

There was a hearing last night at King County. I wasn’t there, but any time you can get hundreds of people into a government meeting on a lovely day, you know it’s an important issue.

It was standing room only Tuesday at a public hearing on the future of Metro. The transit service is facing budget cuts that will seriously affect riders.

Ultimately, King County is going to need the authority to tax itself on a more permanent basis. And that’s where we need to make sure to contact our legislators. You can find your legislators here. As always be polite but firm that you want them to let Metro keep funding itself.

– It’s filing week, everybody.

– Is anyone following the British Columbia elections? Joel is disappointed that they aren’t talking about marijuana.

– If you want to tell Metro to save Metro, here’s where to do that.

– Macklemore is not happy with the Thunder using Can’t Hold Us (h/t to Will on Facebook). I’m confused as to if NBC didn’t understand that Detlef Schrempf’s tweet contained a pun, or why else they put the [sic].

– Y’all are reading about Tom Hardy and a puppy, I hope.

– In yesterday’s Open Thread, I said Thomas Friedman was beyond satire. I stand corrected.